DA409 | Why Your 5-Year-Old Isn't Selfish, Walking Through Repair, and the Gift of Just Showing Up (Chris Ammen)

What if your kid's "selfishness" is actually developmentally normal? 🤯

✅ Why emotional awareness makes you a better dad (not a softer one)

✅ How to walk your kids through the "I'm sorry" process step by step

✅ The turkey hunting philosophy of spiritual formation

✅ Why showing up in children's ministry is a slingshot back to your home

SUMMARY:

What if your child's selfishness is actually a God-given gift? In this episode, Chris Ammenshares why understanding your kid's developmental stage changes everything about how you parent. Plus, he unpacks the "turkey hunting philosophy" of spiritual formation and why the most powerful thing you can do as a dad is simply show up and love your kids for who they are, not what they accomplish.

TAKEAWAYS:

• Your children are growing out of egocentrism, not being punched out of it. Understanding their developmental stage brings patience and grace to your parenting.
• Growing in your own emotional awareness is one of the greatest gifts you can give your kids. When you learn to express the full range of emotions, you create space for them to do the same.
• Walk your kids through the mechanics of relational repair. Chunk it up into small steps so they build the muscle memory for when they're older.
• Spiritual formation is a longitudinal process. It's so slow you'll hardly notice the grass growing, then one day you'll look around and see what God did while you were faithful day by day.
• Call your kids to where they already want to go. Shoulder-to-shoulder time doing what they love is where the real conversations happen.
• Men in children's ministry matter more than you think. Boys need men who cheer them on for who they are, and girls need to see men who treat them with respect and kindness.

GUEST:

Chris Ammen is the founder of Kaleidoscope, a ministry helping kids understand and love the Bible through chapter books, audio content, and a weekly podcast. A former children's pastor with 15 years of experience, Chris is passionate about meeting kids at their developmental level and equipping parents to disciple their children at home. He's the author of Raising Disciples at Home and the host of the Kaleidoscope Podcast. Chris and his wife have four kids ages 5 to 12 and live in the thick of raising their own disciples.

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Quotes:

1. "This is not going to happen in 24 hours. This is not going to happen in a year. This is going to be so slow that I'm hardly going to notice the grass growing underneath my feet. And then I'm going to look around one day and say, look at what God did while I was just being patient and faithful day by day by day."
2. "They grow out of egocentrism. It's not punched out of them. It's not beaten out of them. It's not manipulated out of them. That's something that they have to come to as their brain develops."
3. "Hold up, this is not about you, this is about her. Both of our eyes right now need to be on her and making sure that she is okay."
4. "Call your children to where they already want to go. And while they're there, give them some truth."
5. "Don't underestimate that, both for the boys in the room and maybe even more importantly for the girls in the room. To have a man who looks at them with respect and kindness and graciousness, not as an object, is deeply formational."
6. "You don't have to be a champion in the room. You can just be an awkward dad who's learning how to be around other children."
7. "God thought of them before He thought of the mountains and the seas and the oceans, and He called them very good. He does not regret them."

 

LINKS:

• Send a Voice Message to DadAwesome
• Apply to join the next DadAwesome Accelerator Cohort: Email [e-mail]
• Subscribe to DadAwesome Messages: Text the word "Dad" to [phone]
• Kaleidoscope
• Kaleidoscope Podcast
• Raising Disciples at Home by Chris Ammon
• The Voice of the Heart by Chip Dodd